Guild Wars 2

Easiest way to counter it: Stand by a wall.

Explanation: The skill stops as it can’t teleport around you because of the wall so they may get a few hits in but then get stuck in the mist animation for a second and you avoid ~60% of the damage. It also makes it safe for you to be ready with counter burst or CC.

I don’t see the point of having an energy resource as a balancing point if they’re just going to slap small cool downs on everything.

The least they could have done is make it a 30 energy cost in PvP only and the skill would be in a perfect place in my opinion.

Was this trait strong in team fights? Sure but outside them it was kinda meh.

I’d rather see them reduce the life force gain to 1/2% and the healing to altruistic healing levels, after all that is what this trait is/was essentially, inverse AH.

Nice to see the nerf hammer and screams of OP are slowly sucking the fun out of the expansion already before anyone has time to adapt.

Well OP it depends on the reasons the HoM pets were put there in the first place. It could be to alleviate any “pay 2 win” claims when someone gets beaten by a black moa using ranger but they can’t use it themselves. I know, they’re functionally the same as other pets, but it still wouldn’t stop some people whining and crying because they need to buy and play GW1 to use them and they’re better pets.

As for the new ranger pets, they’re from the expansion, plain and simple. They aren’t bonuses, they aren’t unlocks for being really impressive in another game. It is straight up expansion content as those creatures are from there, you want it, you buy the expansion.

Fair enough, not even finished patching. Thank you for the heads up and gl for the rest of the release/bug fixes.

Useful to necromancers too tbh so I kinda like it.

messiah.1908:

stop the chit chat and start downlouding the game 20 min to chorno opiness

112,000 files and a 2MB internet connection….yeah see ya some time after everyone has been nerfed in a week.

/cry.

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Daniel Handler.4816:

@pyro (I know you are reading this too)

In fights that require reflection can you switch to eternity, feedback, mimic, recall, time warp.

And I assume this build is not able to replace the stealth class in speed runs, unless mobs are killed so much faster one can wait for mass invisibility to go off cooldown to switch it to time warp.

With full alacrity and MoM, MI has a cooldown of 43.2s
Additionally, MI can be coupled with CS for extra stealth time. The nerf to PU is a loss, but the gain in CS from chrono will offset that. Plus, portal can make up for some of the loss, as Mesmer’s personal invis (Prestige, Decoy) can displace it.

That said, there will almost certainly be skips that are just better with a thief along regardless.

You aren’t Pyro!

That being said.

Would running warrior, ele, revenant, mesmer, engie effectively solve this issue? And still have better dps than the meta.

I think you could definitely use a mesmer for stealth skips but it’s going to be very difficult to time everything right. Additionally you’re not going to get tons of alacrity out of combat unless you built up a lot and keep topping it up but even then….

Why not get the engy to switch to scrapper and stealth gyro you all and blast a smoke bomb when needed?

Just curious but now we know the iAvenger has a much better chance at surviving to the point where we might be able to keep 3 up 100% of the time. Does this change the rotation at all?

If I remember correctly 3 phantasms will give a total of 6s alacrity every 8s which is 75% uptime of alacrity on its own, add in the wells as a form of top up for the party. Do we really need to do anything more than shatter the first set of staff clones/phantasms for CS so we can double cast?

I know we will shatter for CS for timewarp but with chronophantasma we should be able to keep the avengers up close to 100%

Fay.2357:

Double Edit: Nm, I’m not getting infracted a day before hot.

Lol stop “making friends” then!

As to the OP, mesmer max burst damage after mirror blade nerf is actually about the same as it was before the spec patch. PU is mostly where it was before the patch too, the only real difference are the few extra traits from chaos (everyone else is getting more defence/offence too) and I believe confounding suggestions with phantasmal fury because the others are bad.

If you’re part of the 5 vs the 1 then it’s you and your team most likely not the classes. Perhaps instead of raging in the forums you could ask how the classes in question managed it. Go to the specific forums and describe the build as best you can (weapons, defences etc) and they might be able to help show what it’s weakness is and how you can either beat it with your build or to adapt to it.

Example: Most power shatter mesmers are insanely weak to conditions to the point that they have to run from that fight.

You forgot classics such as:

“Has more stealth than thief”

“Can attack from stealth without being revealed”

“Has high dps”

I think frifox even did the math showing that replacing a mesmers phantasms with a frost spirit increased party DPS more than 3 phantasms.

Keep in mind that’s about half a mesmers dps too and it looks pretty grim.

On the bright side if alacrity isn’t touched and you can keep high uptime of it then chronomancer has a lot more potential for increasing party dps and utility.

With 4 wells and 3 iAvengers you can certainly keep up high amounts in boss fights for the whole party I would say. With the change to minions not being instagibbed too they will actually stay out for much longer than their cooldown.

Yeah I saw the thief response and I’m well aware of how he died but if the pre placed offensive traps revealed the thief when they got trigger then he’d have seen the thief hiding around the corner. He’d have then been able to take some measure to run away or maybe not have used his heal. He’d have known to expect follow up attacks or potentially have been able to turn some pressure on the thief.

I’m not asking to gut thief or the runes which is why I said adding token damage to the 2 offensive traps.

MUDse.7623:

apharma.3741:

I think you can kind of boil down the discussion to a simple yes or no to a very simple question.

Should you ever be able to kill someone without ever leaving stealth or any indicators you were there?

its not possible to stay 100% stealthed without indicators. most ghost thieves ive seen do this with d/p so u see em pistolfields. u also could stay stealthed with p/d but that requieres u to prefectly time ur CnD or ur revealed also if u fight a thief perma stealthing with CnD u need to aoe blind / block / dogge and his stealth runs out. i ve seen already perma stealthed thieves with only CnD like 2 years back so thats nothing new and if they play power build they should kill u alot faster then a p/d ghost thief.

will u demand a cd on CnD just for the skills nature to remain stealthed if timed perfectly ? well i mained thief 3 years and wont touch it after HoT so for me it wouldnt be a nerf .. but for the few remaining thieves that stick to this class even tho they got pretty much nerfed out of the game – just check the thief forums and u will find tons of ppl quitting / changing class now.

To be clear the only thing I would say needs changing is a small bit of token damage adding to needle trap and tripwire. It makes no sense for shadow trap and ambush to do any damage tbh. In fact I’d even be for removing ambush and putting a much better trap in its place.

As for no indicators, it depends where you are and what’s happening. As you’re a frequent visitor to the thief forums, I’m sure you remember that ranger vid where he just got destroyed by the trap thief. I know the ranger made a slight mistake but there was no indication that any enemy was there till the second set of trap got laid on him. Even then you only saw the thief once for a second after they stomped due to not enough stacked stealth.

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

I think you can kind of boil down the discussion to a simple yes or no to a very simple question.

Should you ever be able to kill someone without ever leaving stealth or any indicators you were there?

Counterquestion: There’s enough classes who are basically invulnerable throughout the fight – should that be?

There you go, that’s what you put, please show me the build that are basically invulnerable throughout the fight. As far as I can see the only ones that can get anything close to that are multi stance warriors and engineers and possibly some kind of bad ranger running signet of stone and protect me.

Even then you as a thief have the tools to wait it out even on DD. With some of the invulnerabilities needing for you to be hit while under a threshold.

So how’s about you answer the question I posed above?

I gather by the sig change you’re no longer on GH.

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

I think you can kind of boil down the discussion to a simple yes or no to a very simple question.

Should you ever be able to kill someone without ever leaving stealth or any indicators you were there?

Counterquestion: There’s enough classes who are basically invulnerable throughout the fight – should that be?

Please link me any build that can realistically be invulnerable for an entire fight that isn’t over in less than 10s, which also isn’t sat there essentially doing nothing while invulnerable.

Guards, warriors, rangers and mesmers have got more than one invulnerability and they can hit while they’re at it.
Didn’t get the rest of your post, do you mean perma stealthed thieves (who aren’t invulnerable) do nothing while sitting in stealth or do you mean all other classes can’t do anything while being invulnerable?

ETA: I’m no fan of the runes or the build either- but I’m against the never stopping “NERF THIEVES!!!!!!!!!!111”

You said, invulnerable throughout the fight, I asked for builds. I then stipulated the fight has to
1. Last over 10s and
2. The invulnerable person has to be able to essentially do more than either cast, be casting or stuck unable to attack. Essentially be some form of threat.

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

I think you can kind of boil down the discussion to a simple yes or no to a very simple question.

Should you ever be able to kill someone without ever leaving stealth or any indicators you were there?

Counterquestion: There’s enough classes who are basically invulnerable throughout the fight – should that be?

Please link me any build that can realistically be invulnerable for an entire fight that isn’t over in less than 10s, which also isn’t sat there essentially doing nothing while invulnerable.

Fay.2357:

apharma.3741:

That’s kinda disturbing and very rude if Pyro isn’t male lol.

No worries, I think my podcasts are pretty unambiguous in that regard.

Lol just disturbing then….very very disturbing.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Xstein.2187:

Fay.2357:

You really think this thread would have died? No way. All the bottom dwellers like to crawl out of the shadows and pop into these threads when someone vomits it into existence. There’s plenty of them posting here already.

Edit: I wonder if we could convince the mods to just merge every new whine thread someone posts into some big mega-whine thread so that we don’t have to deal with a new package of drivel every week.

Most of these threads are like a certain immunodeficiency viral infection, not gona name any names. Days may pass without anyone posting anything. Then all of a sudden, its back. Then everyone be like, well kitten.

Fairly bad analogy scientifically but w/e this is the Internet, Pyro could be a Cat for all we know.

Even then they target the virus directly they don’t antagonize the victim.

Can confirm: Pyro’s not a cat, but does purr very loudly when petted.

That’s kinda disturbing and very rude if Pyro isn’t male lol.

I might dig up some calculations somewhere to add later.

Edit: Dug out my old calculations on the comparison of old berserker vs marauder, with the mirror blade nerf we’re actually doing the about the same burst damage as before the patch. 11.8k total burst if it all crits vs 11.9k total bursting it all crits.

If the Mesmer and thief are going to utilise stealth (why wouldn’t they?) then some access to stealth would be good. Either ranger with some trapper runes, engineer, another Mesmer/thief or maybe a warrior with their obscene XY speed.

Additionally of you make a Norn then you can use become the snow leopard for a fairly easy escape tool. Stealth and charge away.

I think you can kind of boil down the discussion to a simple yes or no to a very simple question.

Should you ever be able to kill someone without ever leaving stealth or any indicators you were there?

Sagat.3285:

apharma.3741:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I would be willing to have SB5 nerfed if only because it would result in the Thief being so bloody undertuned and unwanted that everything else would get buffed and maybe the class would get some diversity and be more useful overall.

Yep, if thieves want to be able to fairly 1v1 any meta build at the moment they need to give something up. Sadly sense, reason and logic is something I’ve come to never expect from anyone uttering the words main and thief.

The sad thing is most people don’t realise that if you want buffs to your class then generally it has to have fallen out of the meta, something thief hasn’t managed after at least 2 years.

YEAH!!! Ignore the fact that we have asked for in combat sustain ranged option to replace SB, there was more to us wanting rifle then a 1200 range weapon instead of another melee weapon they’ve nerfed p/d and refuse to add to add sustain to p/p. Many said they would give up/swap SB mobility for combat efficiency but where is the option huh? You are only seeing what you want to see.

ANet actually buffed power damage on pistol last patch, sure not got 1200 range but unload does hit like a truck now and PP is better ranged damage.

Besides for someone putting in bold “You are only seeing what you want to see” are you not doing the exact same with my post? At no point have I mentioned SB or pistols or ranged options. I said if you want a fair 1v1 thief needs to give up something up. You can’t have top tier mobility, disengage, chase and to be able to stand a 50/50 chance on point.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I would be willing to have SB5 nerfed if only because it would result in the Thief being so bloody undertuned and unwanted that everything else would get buffed and maybe the class would get some diversity and be more useful overall.

Yep, if thieves want to be able to fairly 1v1 any meta build at the moment they need to give something up. Sadly sense, reason and logic is something I’ve come to never expect from anyone uttering the words main and thief.

The sad thing is most people don’t realise that if you want buffs to your class then generally it has to have fallen out of the meta, something thief hasn’t managed after at least 2 years.

Well, mesmers and rangers are all throwing a party and doing their happy dances now.

Alacrity build for lazy people: Summon 3 iAvengers and spam wells.

Just gonna point out that in order to phase traverse the revenant needs to be in shiro not glint and more importantly needs a target.

A thief will still has the edge in slipping away in a fight and getting a decap as their extreme mobility isn’t dependant on anything but ini/cool down. I think you’re more likely to see revenant replacing an ele or warrior than a thief because they can catch the thief if they can target it. We’ll find out soon enough though.

This is the most moronic thing I’ve had the displeasure of seeing on these forums. I really hope for your sake you’re joking.

FYI: This did happen once as a bug, it was horrible and got patched pretty quickly as Mesmer was unplayable.

Strafe around the targets to make sure you’re always behind them.

Let someone else run in first if in a group as they will get initial aggro.

Use DD, when you cloak and dagger wait a sec before the backstabbing to make sure the enemy targets someone else if you had aggro.

Watch enemy build up animations, dodge big attacks like any other class, use death blossom or pistol whip to dodge without endurance.

Offhand pistol #5 makes every non champ non dredge laughably easy.

Know when you’ll need to use SP and DD, generally its trash and bosses respectively.

Be with a competent party, that means one with on demand cleanses, a guard for that sweet aegis, Warriors for that high might stacks etc so you clear smooth and fast.

Also don’t bother adding extra vitality or toughness to gear, high level fractals will one shot you even in soldiers so take the deaths, learn and get better. It’s how I learnt on ele (1.5yrs ago) and all my other classes, it doesn’t do you favours getting used to taking a few hits.

You said solo roaming, do you mean in WvW? If so go hoelbrak for the -20% condition duration, with food and the GM minor cc conditions will be irrelevant.

Scholar might be another good choice, rune of the Mesmer if using dazes, Privateer if you wanna have a parrot around lol. Lots of choices but for me it’s hoelbrak that looks the best.

mesmer need nerf bcoz they dps to much forum stealth with there ilusions and clones and then they shatter to one shot you in stealth while keeping you perma dazed and perma crippled and perma 5k confusion roflmao this class is a joke and people used to be skills to win on this but now you face roll with perma stealth perma invuln perma aegis and regen and prot and everything.dont even start on phantasms their broken with how much burst they do on top of all this gg chrono i will be rolling mesmer from dd ele as its vastly more op and no point using anything else at least u needed skill for ele.

P.S. Do you know how hard it is to type that badly on an iPad that autocorrects every single thing even if you go back and edit it’s?!

BlaqueFyre.5678:

@a pharmacy
Saying they won’t have a sign that they are there is a lie, Black Powder leaves red rings, and same with Sr which has a huge house over it, thieves relying on setting traps to maintain perma stealth is next to impossible due to the small uptime of the stealth provided vs the CD of traps, they rely on D/P for the permastealth, which again has a tell with the red aoe from the BP. the Trapper Rune Provides 3 secs of stealth per trap placed with a max of three traps and MwS that’s 12 secs total that gives no indication, while the need to use the BP to keep it going till traps are off CD… so there are indications that a thief is there, a thief can do all of these things without the Trapper Runes, the runes just make it easier. not trying to directly defending just stating flaws in your argument, I’m supporting a redesign for this crap not a bandaid nerf.

So instead of crying nerf, cry for stealth and thief redesign, and make everyone happy, because I know thieves are tired of being in a crap position build wise, and most players hate the stealth mechanic that Anet implemented, they can redesign it to make a better experience for everyone and stop all the crying from both sides.

Trapper runes give superspeed, with that you can run to places where people can’t see you BP/HS. Maybe you find problems because you just BP/HS and SR infront of people but generally when I stealth I do it out of LoS.

And before you say no point stealthing if out of LoS, your “Gold [Server name] invader” tag shows up for miles and even around corners.

Straegen.2938:

apharma.3741:

Thing a lot of people here haven’t realised is these thieves can sit in a keep and almost never show themselves, not even a sign they’re there and bam, lord down and capped before swords appear.

Sort of. While testing this build, I tried this on a tower and because I never proc’d a reveal the guards just kept resetting and healing. If a thief does reveal for a couple seconds it does work though. Staying in the tower by running CnD off a door between trap drops was cheap as hell BTW.

Tip: Use thieves guild to keep them in combat.

Edit: You might want 2 thieves for keeps to burn them down before anyone can get there but then power might be better for that but less forgiveable.

Offair.2563:

Stand in red circles sure, if you see the thief pop up every now and then but trapper runes will make em get even more stealth plus superspeed. How do you assume people will know where the invisible target is and thus, know where a red circle may appear.

Stealth traps, yea sure i will do a 5sec cast to put one down and hope the thief is so blind he wont see me bend down rubbing the floor.

These arent counters chaps. Just get rid of the perma invisibility WHILE dishing out good condi damage. I can not believe the people who actually defend this but hey its about thieves so i knew it would happen anyway. Any reasonable player will say its an incredible stupid build and nope not OP but stupid.

I know perma stealth is still a thing etc but they do get them self revealed attacking.

Bet you the defenders of the ghost thief are the same that were crying for PU nerfs and are still asking for PU condi nerfs now.

Thing a lot of people here haven’t realised is these thieves can sit in a keep and almost never show themselves, not even a sign they’re there and bam, lord down and capped before swords appear.

Zodryn.4216:

I thought it was strange that while we can permastealth as thief, it takes so much effort compared to chrono and scrapper. We need to trait for it, spend all of our initiative doing four tricky leaps every 10 seconds while trying to avoid hitting anything, and take stealth utilities because we don’t have the init regen to keep it up otherwise. It’d definitely help if MwS affected combos and maybe gave more than 1 extra second.

Yeah coz Chronomancer just presses 1 button and ends up in permastealth. Nevermind the devotion of 3 trait lines and the requirement of 3 major traits alongside your elite, all utility slots and an offhand that bursts big purple smoke every 4.5 seconds. Putting aside the obvious lack of knowledge by the poster above and returning to the topic.

I was afraid they were going to tweak the gyro to make it follow closely, we’ll have to see just how it is but it is essentially perma stealth for 5 people. The gyro doesn’t aggro mobs so thief will definitely be getting replaced by engineers in raids/dungeons as they provide much better DPS (assuming condi and moderate length fight) and can provide all the stealth for skipping.

For PvP/WvW I think the thief has the edge on stealth application as it doesn’t have that gyro announcing to everyone where you are. Having said that I can see myself running into 5 man roaming parties with their 1337 ganking skills killing solo roamers.

Gonna be a hard time for stealth roaming in HoT as stealth disruptor traps are going to be everywhere!

Yeah it’s a bug, had it happen in WvW a lot, usually after a movement skill is used you just stop moving. You try to move and it doesn’t work for a sec then works.

Try using rocket boots on uneven terrain, it’s the premier example of this bug.

Not to say there aren’t people that use exploits but it’s not that common. Was a well known thief in T9 who used to call everyone a hacker, was hilarious all the rage whispers.

Offair.2563:

yanoch.7051:

They should add a reveal on traps activation or traps circle on the ground like pistol field. I’m fine with any or both. I have no issue with pistol field since I can see it and I can somewhat counterplay and manage my risk/reward.

It used to be reveal on trigger when these runes got in game. Why they changed it and didnt took this perma stealth in account is way beyond me. But i have that much often with anets decisions so thats not new to me.

Yeah adding damage to the trigger of the traps or some of them will solve the problems. I don’t agree with adding an ICD on the runes though as its not a problem on the other class that can use them because their traps reveal them. It won’t be a problem on DH I dare say for the same reason.

It’s not really a nerf to thief and their stealth and it won’t affect other builds, it also doesn’t make the other builds/classes that use traps essentially useless.

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

snip

Play thief a bit, will you? =)
Sorry, but I guess you know that the thief forums are full of “evidence” and I’m tired to explain. – 25% damage is nothing compared to what other classes can do. And that only counts while in stealth (reveal traits) if you’d know D/P you’d know that they’re the hardest to hit thieves anyway.

I have played thief “a bit” I have also played plenty of other classes. -25% damage reduction is nothing to be sniffed at especially as a minor when the current way to find a thief is hit thin air and watch your auto chain or AoE and hope.

As for the thief forums its full of whiney little kittens that wouldn’t be happy even if they could 1v20 with a one shot kill and would go around crying “kitten kitten , l2p nubz”.

Hell that fact that they genuinely believe a thief cannot perma stealth and that a mesmer still has more stealth than a thief (even after PU reversion) is proof enough of the moronic cesspool of that place.

Jana.6831:

All builds but D/P were nerfed in June. And even D/P is mediocre in comparison with other classes’ power creep. D/D not viable because the traits required for it are in the same tier, P/D not viable because of the same reason and because bleeding and poison is relatively weak and because ricochet was removed. P/P was never viable to start with, S/D isn’t viable since the removal of feline grace.

Ghost thief is a troll build which becomes boring fast – that’s why no one used it, I guess.

Please add traits and numbers to that because DP was buffed massively in survivability by getting 25% damage reduction in stealth, shadow rejuvenation and a slightly toned down version of ini regen with stealth on steal. It also was able to run both panic strikes and executioner, something they had to choose between pre patch which was a DP thieves wet dream till they realised improvisation allows for a chance at getting all utilities back.

There’s also a lot of damage mods that were just folded in baseline as far as I know like dual training and the dagger training.

In contrast a mesmers burst is about the same now (under ideal circumstances) as it was pre patch despite getting better use of vulnerability. This is because they no longer get illusionary elasticity benefit on great sword and there’s now a condition attached to the shatter trait. They gained added defence but then so did thief.

As for math proof, go look at my post history, it’s easy to find as its big blocks of math, normally I’d link it but tablet and it’s pretty easy to find.

As for old Feline Grace and SD, when coupled with old vigor it meant you regen dodges in 2.5s which when you coupled it with the teleports on sword and evades on SD and the build in general it made for a very forgivable play style for such a low investment. Now if I get beaten by an SD thief I know they had to time their dodges, before they could spam them for no reason and get all the rewards with a quick escape if they really fluffed up.

Offair.2563:

apharma.3741:

Offair.2563:

apharma.3741:

Offair.2563:

@ Arphama Yep they can still perma stealth but will be revealed upon doing damage. Something that does not happen when they run trapper runes and putting conditions on you out of nowhere, THAT is the problem.

Yeah which is why I said they just need to add damage to the thief traps except needle trap, problem solved. Could even add it to needle trap if you want, won’t make much of a difference.

There is an easier solution, just revert them back to what they were, reveal on trigger.

That will work too, either way you just need them to reveal the thief for a time when they go on the offence with the traps.

@Jana, you’re suggesting nerfing the runes because one and only one class can abuse the stealth aspect. Especially when it’s the class, thief in this case, that is the odd one out with traps that don’t reveal it when triggered.

Btw this isn’t anti thief, if it was any other class with traps that didn’t reveal them too then my answer would be the same. Let’s just hope Mesmer doesn’t get traps sometime…

Just wait for HoT and dragonhunter guardians with traps. Already know some people who going to try them.

Yeah I know a few that plan to run them too but they do damage when triggered so the stealth is going to be of limited use to them. They’re just going to be like trapper rangers but instead of large condition damage you get direct damage.

Did you know you can block all but one of a guardians traps unlike rangers and thieves, the more you know…

@Jana, not worried about mesmers either, more worried about the QQ and random nerfs mesmers will get if they ever had traps and paired with this rune =P

Offair.2563:

apharma.3741:

Offair.2563:

@ Arphama Yep they can still perma stealth but will be revealed upon doing damage. Something that does not happen when they run trapper runes and putting conditions on you out of nowhere, THAT is the problem.

Yeah which is why I said they just need to add damage to the thief traps except needle trap, problem solved. Could even add it to needle trap if you want, won’t make much of a difference.

There is an easier solution, just revert them back to what they were, reveal on trigger.

That will work too, either way you just need them to reveal the thief for a time when they go on the offence with the traps.

@Jana, you’re suggesting nerfing the runes because one and only one class can abuse the stealth aspect. Especially when it’s the class, thief in this case, that is the odd one out with traps that don’t reveal it when triggered.

Btw this isn’t anti thief, if it was any other class with traps that didn’t reveal them too then my answer would be the same. Let’s just hope Mesmer doesn’t get traps sometime…

Offair.2563:

@ Arphama Yep they can still perma stealth but will be revealed upon doing damage. Something that does not happen when they run trapper runes and putting conditions on you out of nowhere, THAT is the problem.

Yeah which is why I said they just need to add damage to the thief traps except needle trap, problem solved. Could even add it to needle trap if you want, won’t make much of a difference.

Thief can still perma stealth FYI, they just leave little red rings where they’re chaining it that’s all.

Mesmer can’t even come close to the stealth levels of a thief even investing in 2 specific trait lines for major traits, all their utilities and a specific weapon off hand so please don’t draw comparisons with that garbage.

As for the trapper runes and stealth, I dunno I think they just need to add damage to all traps but needle trap for thief. Caltrops is a trick so they don’t need to do anything to that either and the runes themselves are fine with DH and Ranger from what I see.

Thing is the majority of the thieves stealth (watch MeepeY’s stream) actually comes from HS through BP combo with the traps as a top up when combined with hide in shadows and trappers respite.

I know a lot of people who would simply not do anything PvP related than join the childish cesspool of idiocy that is PvP.

Be glad that the few that would play PvP afterwards aren’t being forced to as the chances are they will hunt the daily then afk till the end.

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

Jana I think you’re missing the point about ghost thief. Nerf thief pls.

Ok joking aside, ANet were very quick to fix the self buff stacking of rangers as it was overpowered in a single person scenario. It seems ANet do and don’t balance around 1v1 in that they try to discourage that kind of scenario which could certainly be very powerful in 1v1. It seems they want that kind of power to be from team scenarios where multiple people work together to get that situation.

P.S. How’re you finding the matchup as a solo DD roamer?

Trapper thief is no real build but it depends on a rune. It is possible because of thief traits, yes, but if you balance thief around the rune then every thief who doesn’t take that rune is at a disadvantage.

What does the ever “they nerfed rangers within 24 hours cry!!” argument has to do with anything?
You think that anet doesn’t balance around 1 vs 1 and maybe they’re not exactly balancing around 1 vs 1 but: even if you take pvp so a group of 5 vs a group of 5. You have ever changing classes in these groups. And most of them fight 1 vs 1 at some point. So that is 1 vs 1 balance. If even indirectly. But I have no idea how anet balances everything that’s why I asked where you guys read how they are balancing.

I’m solo roaming since 1,5 years now and before June I had good chances to defeat every class and every build. The toughest were medi guard and no matter what engi. So for me there already was balance (once.. upon a time). I never agreed with how condis were buffed with the introduction of ferocity though.

Ty, I’m doing fine.

I was joking about thief btw.

As for the ranger, I was getting at the combination of extending and generating some of the most powerful in combat boons is something they don’t want classes to do solo without a high investment (leaving them largely harmless) for the most part. In that regard I feel they softly balance 1v1 as they try to make sure you don’t get obscenely powerful combinations in PvP. The wrench appears when you remove the point cap mechanics and there becomes no penalty to stealthing/obscene running away.

Nice to know the roaming fun hasn’t been completely blobbed/ktrained out of you and no-one likes medi guards, hate em on thief, mesmer and pretty much any burst power spec.

Who’s Helseth? Is it the name of the unicorn on the inspiration line picture because if so why is it going to be on a dull boring dark thief trait line?

It’s worth adding that since the PU nerf a Mesmer can’t even come close to perma stealth. They can get about 29s of stealth by running mimic, decoy, torch, PU, torch trait, mass invis and manipulation cool down reduction. They can then restealth after 3s for maybe another 9s then they’re just flat outta stealth and waiting on cool downs.

Additionally they most likely have no condi clear due to picking up mimic and decoy and so are very weak to conditions or have no teleport.

I don’t find PU mesmers a problem, the ghost thieves that can actually perma stealth, have 2-3 hiding in a keep and then flip it in 30s are way more of a concern for me now.

Dancingmonkey, I’d say anything that’s power with lock on and grenades preferably with grenadier trait will be able to hunt stealthed targets easily. Even a condi build with flamethrower and lock on would find mesmers and kill them easily.

Best tip for the OP: If you see no-one around, assume someone is there in stealth and finger that elixir S button and keep fingering it till you know where the burst players are.

Soon as you take damage or something happens like a daze and no-one is there hit it.

Should help you survive enough of them to know what is going on and how to negate it with a dodge as Fay said. Vampirism runes can also help.

Also arcadeus there’s no way an engineer sitting on 25k health will get 100-0 from a shatter without optimal circumstances which would likely blow all cool downs.

For PvE your first assumption of everything else would be better is bang on the money. Maybe alacrity bot for future PvE meta with chronometer might be a thing….maybe…..if it’s not Nerfed on Arrival (NoA) or because of whiney people.

WvW you can be a real game changer giving a veil or portaling past a choke for a Zerg but your tagging ability is kinda meh so don’t expect as much loot as a GWEN. Roaming power is ok at and the PU condi is very cheesy but very effective for solo, you wanna switch to power though if running with 2-4 people though.

PvP I don’t play as much so I’ll leave that to others.

Orpheal.8263:

apharma.3741:

The reason thief and mesmer works so well together is they can give each other stealth, they both have teleports and if your friend uses traveler runes or runes chrono then both have decent mobility.

They can focus a single target down and alternate stuns/dazes in coordination to make sure the guy has very little ways to fight back. They both hit like trucks especially in combination and timed right can 100-0 almost anyone.

If you over extended there are multiple ways out, thief can black powder and blast it with blinding powder for 6-8s stealth, shadow refuge, mass invis, portal out or both use your own stealth to run away. They just compliment each other perfectly, it’s a shame many thieves have a rod up their kittens and want mesmer nerfed into the floor.

Ofc, I’m talking power builds btw.

Because duoing with a mesmer is not everything about what this game consists off..

Please get a freaking wider sight of game balance and think please more outside of your box, so that you will realize, that the game is since the June 23 patch a total balance chaos for PvP and WvW, especially for thieves… if you duo now with a mesmer or not…

The sad point is for the thief, that it has practically become mandatory for us to duo with others, just to have a fair chance in most of the equally skilled fights, because thieves in itself got nerfed so down to death, that we became this games +1 pet class number 1 >.> which performs, even still after the nerf in the thieve’s number one gameplay mechanic – stealth alot worser, than mesmers and this fact is just simply unacceptable as much as it is totally ridiculous, how much Anet downgraded the thief class more and more into nothingless, just because of too many people being too stupid to adapt to combat against stealth since years, that Anet started over the years to water the thiefs speciality more and more down by giving more and more classes Stealth too and more/better hard counters to stealth when played with the right way much more forgiving build, while thief players always have to play absolutely perfect, where every single mistake can lead to death instantly due to beign alot quishier than Mesmers, despite havign the better armor class that should protect us much better from incoming damage than Mesmers, but the kittened up game balance thats based on 2012 base health values won’t make it possible, that our better armor class will mean anything at all, nor do thieves have any traits at all that make the better armor class more meaning ful and the factoras for attributes like Healing Power, Toughness and Vitality are still 3 years later after game release such garbage, that these stats are compared to the offensive attributess nearly meaningless, because Toughness as defense stat works way too weak, it should reduce alot better incoming damage and reduce condition durations on you, while Vitality should give sigicificantly better health per point, so that you actualyl see also a massive difference between a player build that has no vitality at all and a player build, that uses everywhere vitality as main attribute to get the most vitality that is possible.

That difference between a no vitality build and a full vitality build shouldn’t just be only freaking laughable 5000 Hp or so – that is like a ridiculous difference of just 1 attack that you can survive longer or so – but instead that difference should be at least 15000 health, so that when you go for full vitality, you actually really can significantly survive alot longer than someone with no vitality, especially against damaging conditions due to a needed synergy between vitality and toughness, that so more toughness you have, vitality should protect you then better against condition damage protectually while healign power should have synergy with vitality that so more vitality you have, to more should profitate your healing power from that by getting a bonus for outgoing heals so more maximum health you have based on 10% of your Max health in attribute points, so that your heals will have a synergy from having self very high health and being that way also a more supportive character that can stay longer alive!!

Status Effects like Weakness should also reduce either Condition Damage or Condition/CC Durations, that would be another great thign for better game balance to brign the game after the june patch again more back to the ground without having to actually change somethign big on the classes power creep, if ANet would juts finalyl take into consideratino to stop ignoring the general aspects of game balance and adjust the general aspects of the game balance finally also accordingly to the current new state of condition gameplay, which requires absosolutely of the game that Weakness needs to be changed to affect somehow conditions too and that the Base Health of all classes needs to be readjusted, because 2012 with our still current Base Health vaklues, there hasn#t exsited all the power creep, that the game has now.

At the state of the condition gameplay of 2012, there were these base health values all absolutely fine, but nor with the new condition gameplay, these values are all totally outdated!

Yep, there’s that rod. Funny I dusted off my DP thief in WvW after the patch, strong as ever, in fact DP was even buffed while others thief builds were not buffed as much.

Btw I stopped when I saw “stealth is worse than mesmers” as it shows you’re either bad, clueless or a liar.

P.S. Did you miss the part where I’m advocating he plays as a thief because the two classes compliment each other? As in equally, not one looks after the other?

Jana I think you’re missing the point about ghost thief. Nerf thief pls.

Ok joking aside, ANet were very quick to fix the self buff stacking of rangers as it was overpowered in a single person scenario. It seems ANet do and don’t balance around 1v1 in that they try to discourage that kind of scenario which could certainly be very powerful in 1v1. It seems they want that kind of power to be from team scenarios where multiple people work together to get that situation.

P.S. How’re you finding the matchup as a solo DD roamer?

Exciton.8942:

apharma.3741:

Exciton.8942:

Tempest will also be able to boon share in HoT.

Wasn’t that changed to only might?

Really? Didn’t know. I only played the aura d/f tempest build duration beta. Didn’t even try warhorn.

Just checked wiki. It is still showing as ‘spread boons to allies’ not ‘spread might to allies’.

Yeah Karl I think it was said that he was changing it to only might for BWE3 but I have no compelling reason to bother with tempest while the dev team misses the ball that badly on it. So I didn’t check, I think most of the threads were removed so you can’t even check it sadly. We’ll see in 2 weeks.